[mythtv] Documentation

[Nav Jagpal]

MythTV has been getting more and more popular. Now when I mention the
software to someone, they actually know what I'm talking about pretty
much right away.

That is why I think a step-by-step document for installing, and
perhaps even using, MythTV would be a good to get a larger user
community.

I know that a lot of us out there have our favourite distros, hardware
encoders etc.. And the combinations of different types of hardware is
massive - but what about a document for those non-Linux type people?

Document that outlines: hardware (video card, encoder card, sound
card, distro) setup. ?

For example, I use Debian, and to avoid the whole TV-out hassle, I
just used the onboard video card and a VGA->PC converter from KWorld
(<$100 CDN).

When I went to create my Mythtv box, I had to rumble around the Net
looking for various sources.. I wish I could have found a document
that said "Hey.. if you get this sound card, video card, etc.. , which
will cost you $$ dollars, you can build this box.. And if you have a
sound card and video card that *just works*, you'll be set too".

Comments/suggestions?


On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 18:41:32 -0800, Nav Jagpal <nav.jagpal at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for all of the documentation related advice.
> 
> In the next few days I will try to go through existing documentation,
> take a look at the users mailing list, and take a look at the source
> code (can someone suggest a starting place for the source?... probably
> a better for my understanding if I struggle with it anyhow)
> 
> Before I sit down and start writing any documentation, I'll send a
> quick outline of what I will be attempting to do, so that I can get
> some more advice/comments/suggests before starting.
> 
> Just wanted to send a note so that the people that have already
> responded know that I didn't send an email and run away.
> 
> Thanks again
> --
> Nav
> 
> 
> On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 16:13:22 -0800, Brad Templeton
> <brad+mydev at templetons.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 07, 2005 at 09:24:57AM -0500, Daniel Thor Kristjansson wrote:
> > > On Sun, 6 Feb 2005, Nav Jagpal wrote:
> > > ]Is there a need for any type of documentation, manuals, etc?
> > >
> > > There is a need for developer documentation. Starting with a guide to
> > > theming and a guide to producing a debug build and a backtrace for bug
> > > reporting. But we also need an overview of the classes and how they
> > > interact and something like doxygen for the code itself.
> >
> > When I started looking at the code I would have loved to have seen
> > docs on the scheduler, on the frontend protocol.   Also, significant
> > sections of the code are uncommented beyond having descriptive symbol
> > names -- so adding comments to variable names and function names would
> > be an important part of documenting the classes.
> >
> > As for user docs, one start is reading mythtv-users mailing list and
> > seeing what things people are asking the most questions about.  In some
> > cases it is undocumented stuff, in other cases it is documented but
> > they are not finding the documentation.   In the latter case, it's
> > a challenge to reorganize those docs so that even an idiot can find the
> > answer to their question.
> >
> > There are also many levels of users, and as Mythtv grows in popularity,
> > you will see more users who need to be walked through things, folks who
> > are less linux-familiar etc.
> >
>